Ephemera Newsletter Iss July.4
(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)
Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Namana! (Malagasy for “friends”)
A fourth and final expedited shortened issue basking in the poetry of Jennifer Gauthier, Ephemera’s poet for the month of July! If you haven’t yet, please check out her artist statement and bio on this dedicated post. We thank you for your presence.
On to our standard content matters: Won’t you please check out last week’s issue if you missed it.
In Brief…this week’s features:
Briefly: quick thoughts on visiting The Phillips Collection
Listening to Passion Pit’s dancy, emotive happy-woe song, “The Reeling”
July’s poet, Jennifer Gauthier and her fourth of four poems, “Roundup”
Our weekly lists:
3 magazines with open calls
3 awards/prizes
3 recent job listings for editors and writers.
EPHEMERA’S RESIDENCY:
Good Contrivance Farm
or
More ephemera:
Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.
Ephemera
Dear Readers,
Quickly! Quickly now. We’re back thinking about museums and art experiences, particularly our visit to the Phillips Collection at the start of July, the hot-hot portion of the D.C. swamp-summer. A fantastic private museum that’s run as well as you’d hope, that’s both historically relevant and contemporary. That’s a tough line to straddle (see below for our full write up on the museum), and, maybe to be expected, we’re thinking of all the lines, the myriad straights and unexpected curves we straddle as artist-beings, writer-people, poet-workers, scribbler-hobbyists. Maybe this is as it ever was, ever will be short of finding a patron (any backers out there?!) but we thinky writerly feely types must be many things all at once while trying to be an authentic creative Self, while also trying to live and experience as anyone might. Tombstones will read: Sacrifices were made. Waking up in the wee hours to plug away at a long manuscript, equal the evenings and weekends, requires us to make choices, to eschew vast hour clusters of frolicking and all-too-pleasant time-wasting. Maybe August can be slow for us. Maybe there’s less to do, fewer people to see. Maybe we can find ourselves in a humid bubble of desk-jockeying guiltlessly alone. Maybe. Let’s aim.
August is here and coming and arrived and nearly gone—too quickly, all of it! Despite some personal turmoil (moves and mice and mayhem) we’ve managed to piece together a room with a desk with a seat with a lamp (not very much at all to look at), but it will do. Wishing the rains frequent and tempestuous (the gods are obliging today) we’ll spend all the time we can for the month as September looms busy as usual. Get ye back to the seat. Integrate some creativity into your family life—we’ve been reading Mary Oliver out loud with our loved ones at the dining table and reading a chapter at a time of a Murakami novel with tea and candle light instead of Tanqueray and T.V. (there’s never been Tanqueray, but one can imagine a routine of G&T’s being a popular holdover from lockdowns—you know, the T and T.V. sound was irresistible in the moment). Ring up your buddies who will wax poetic. Declutter. Revisit your summer notes. Think about your jaunts. Find some tunes that help you tune into your work. We’re here to help.
Fankasitrahana!
(Gratitude)
Poetry by Jennifer Gauthier
Roundup When they rounded up the ponies the pinto stayed clear hugged the back of the corral bucked, kicked. The cowboys huddled and tried again but that ornery pony wouldn’t budge. That was me, at seventeen circled, surrounded beset by girls with perfect hair and makeup. But I ran the other way down my own path kicked up my heels and shouted into the wind: “I’ll never be taken by this roundup.”
Or please join us as paid subscribers:
Prizes/Awards/Stipends Winter ‘24
Willie Morris Awards for Southern Writing awards $12k to Fiction & NF books published in the same year, & $3000 for poetry. University of Mississippi hosts this all genre prize. Must be about the south. $12k/$3k. No Fee. DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 30
The George Garrett Fiction Prize advances $1,000 & publication for a novel or short story collection with Texas Review Press. The prize began in 1998 and has published one book each year since. $1k + Pub + 10 copies. $28 Fee. DEADLINE SEPT 30
Ephemera sponsors one (1) and up to two (2) writers each for a 1-week stay and a travel stipend to the Good Contrivance Farm Residency in Maryland.
1 and up to 2 applicants will be chosen after submissions close
1-week on the farm per person (valued at ~$900)
$200 travel stipend
or
Bookstore: Guides, Gifts & Classics
Please consider supporting our letter and literature by buying books. It helps us and others! Bookstore via Bookshop.
In combination with Ephemera’s sponsored residency at Good Contrivance Farm, we want to highlight our book rec from last issue once more time. For us, it serves as both an interesting study in the methods and ways of other writers and how they managed to create spaces dedicated to their craft as well as a call to action.
Our residency offers time and some funds. Once there, you’ll need to be self directed as it’s very hands off, though also comfortable and encouraging as last year’s selectee, Monique Harris, attests to in the blurb she provided—an account where so very grateful for! Check out Writers’ Retreats: Literary Cabins, Creative Hideaways, and Favorite Writing Spaces of Iconic Authors.
You’ll understand why we also run our other residency, The Write-In: A Creative Staycation. With that program, we aim to encourage folks to make a space that is comfortable and as fully realized as possible. Spaces are everything for writers. The distance from the norm is important. Even if the boundaries are invisible, a section of the room or apartment—though we wish a full-fledged office for everyone!
Writers and their retreats:
Featured Music: Passion Pit
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